Category Archives: Poverty

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. IS THE WORLD SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL ?

10 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change.,  Attention economy, Human Collective Stupidity., Human values., Humanity., Inequality, Olympic circus., OLYMPICS GAMES., Our Common Values., Poverty, Religion., Religious Beliefs., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Truth, Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Twenty-minute read) 

 

To quote:

Stephen Hawking

“Ever since the dawn of civilization, people have not been content to see

events as unconnected and inexplicable. They have craved an understanding

of the underlying order in the world. Today we still yearn to know why we are

here and where we came from. Humanity’s deepest desire for knowledge is

justification enough for our continuing quest. And our goal is nothing less

than a complete description of the universe we live in.”

                                               —————–

Humans have – over time – developed a vast global network of social structures which

collectively organize the functioning of the entire species. 

But we remain unable to live in harmony either with each other and with nature, so we

all understand that on some levels that the world is spinning out of control and there’s

nothing we can do about it.

Why?

Because we have created a living system of greed/profit/ inequality/ and religious

beliefs that are now all but un-reversible and that will follow us where ever we go.

It has been the way of the world ever since the dawn of man that he who dominates is the one who controls.

About 85 percent of the world’s population identifies with a religious group.

Religion and humankind have gone hand in hand ever since the concept of a being and still, the fight for supremacy goes on:

Christianity, Daoism, Confucianism, Judaism, Buddhis, ISLAM, Santería, Hinduism, Vodou, Yoruba Religion, Cambomblé.

“When religion ruled the world it was called the Dark Ages”. 

“If you think it doesn’t still rule the world you’re kidding yourself.”

From fundamentalist terrorists to gay civil rights it seems religion still dictates people’s beliefs and therefore the laws that are put into place the world over.

Religions create unity, yes but they also create Separatism which we are becoming painfully aware that.

Although our religions gave us a starting place for thinking about how our world functions, they no longer serve us in that process; and in fact, have left a trail of destruction in their historic path.

The goal of Islam is to rule the entire world and submit all of mankind to the faith of Islam. The goal of Christianity was and still is similar without the need for Jihads.   

People need to stop using religion as a crutch for their conscience.

                                              ————

Back to the world spinning out of control.

It is not that the world itself is all of suddenly spinning on its axis, it is us who are still unable to live with each other in a sustainable respectful manner that is spinning out of control.  

However, those of us who recently watched the Para Olympics and the closing ceremony in Japan surely realize that the world we live in is connected in more ways than one.

By now, we’re all familiar with the tech world circle-jerk about how we’re connecting the planet and the world is getting smaller and we’re all becoming one big kumbaya global community and how this is amazing because starving babies in Mozambique and Suriname can each have their own iPad, and blah, blah, blah, the internet is cool.

On the other hand, we have also witnessed the tragedies of current wars affecting the world and people in the future.

People will probably point to the 9/11 terrorist attacks as the inflection point where the US began its slow descent from global dominance.

That the American Dream is now essentially just another form of what psychologists call “The Just World Hypothesis.”American Dream Homeless Man

                                           ————————

Don’t get me wrong, the rise of the internet and social media has accelerated social progress in many ways.

By nearly every objective measure, the world is a better place than it has ever been in modern history.

So why doesn’t it feel that way?

Could it be that a transition of power is soon to happen?

It is an old saying that knowledge is power and if so our world is rapidly becoming a world driven by the power of data. 

Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until  2021.  That’s something like five exabytes of data.

While technology is neutral, people are not ready for what’s coming.

Technology might be giving a chance for humans to maintain their presence but without education that imparts knowledge, it is inevitable, that those who indirectly or directly have the data will control power in the world. 

                                          ———————-

This is both good and bad.

Because outrageous news and information spread faster and further than any other form of information, dominating our daily attention. 

On the one hand, we become aware of some of the grossest injustices in our society as soon as they happen. On the other hand, all we hear about are the grossest injustices in our society as soon as they happen.

The sickest and most grotesque finds its way to the top of the nation’s consciousness, dominating our attention and the news cycle, dividing and recruiting us into its ever more polarized camps.

But the world isn’t worse.

It’s just that we’re more aware of all of the bad things than ever before.

Cameras, the internet, and most importantly, social media. This is what’s new.

                                         ———————-

In the attention economy, people are rewarded for extremism.

Thomas Davenport, a professor and former researcher at McKinsey and Accenture, wrote a book called Attention Economy in 2001.

In it, he wrote “As the theory of the economics of attention, user’s attention is a scarce resource that multiple information competes for. With the development of the Internet, especially the explosion of online social media, netizens (online citizens) receive redundant messages from various online channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and online forums, which results in extremely severe information overload problem”

So in the attention economy, anyone trying to connect with an audience must treat the user’s time as the ultimate resource.

For example: 

The idea is that many products work together so people never have to leave the ecosystem because it has everything you need.

Attention in technology is the currency in the double-sided marketplace of consumer products.

The seller gives access to technologies (apps, social media, digital products) in exchange for the buyer (users/people) spends their time and attention to access products.

Everyone online seems to solicit our attention, how do we decide who to give it to?

People have a limited amount of attention to spend and as attempts are made to control the spending of attention a person’s willpower diminishes.

So should we be asking  “Are products giving enough in return for the attention they take?” Should all tech companies be paying us for the data they collect and sell rather than we value your privacy or this site contains cookies. 

While social media platforms and TV stations are rewarded for indulging their worst biases and stoking other people’s worst fears. They are rewarded for portraying the world as a place that is burning to the ground, whether it’s because of the Taliban, or police violence, or Islamic terrorism, or low interest rates. 

And this constant awareness of every fault and flaw of our humanity, combined with an inundation of doomsayers and narcissistic nihilists commanding our attention space, is what is causing this constant feeling of a chaotic and insecure world that doesn’t actually exist. 

We are going crazy?

Each one of us, individually, capsized in the flood of negativity, we are ready to burn down the very structures on which the most successful civilizations in human history have been built. Exaggerating all that is wrong and minimizing all that is right.

It’s for this reason that I’ve started to remove myself from digesting news and information through social media. Nothing will replace face-to-face interaction.

Ever since the dawn of time; this has never been more true than today no!

                                       ————————

Freedom can only exist when you are willing to tolerate views that oppose your own when you’re willing to give up some of your desires for the sake of a safe and healthy community when you’re willing to compromise and accept that sometimes things don’t go your way and that’s fine.

In a weird sense, true freedom doesn’t exist.

Because the only way for human rights to persist is for everyone to collectively agree to accept that things don’t have to go their way 100% of the time.

A free and functioning democracy demands a populace that can sustain discomfort, that can tolerate dissatisfaction, that can be charitable and forgiving of groups whose views stand in contrast to one’s own, and most importantly, that can remain unswayed in the face of some violent threat.

In a culture where your worth as a human being is tied to your level of socioeconomic success, this can’t be achieved. 

By the time you reach adolescence, you are subjected to live’s first traumas and failures. You recognize that the world isn’t fair. Things go wrong sometimes. Bad things happen to good people and vice versa. And in many ways, you’re not as great as you had always thought or believed.

Other teenagers, particularly teenagers who are pampered and learn most of what they know about the world through TV or the internet, don’t handle it so well.

The world doesn’t conform to their small-minded belief system and instead of blaming the belief system, they blame the world. And that blaming doesn’t turn out well for anybody.

That things are not just. That we cannot fully control our destiny.

The question is how well we will adapt and mature to this new reality.

Will we accept it and modify our ethos to match the 21st century?

Or will we become petulant and angry and scapegoat the cognitive dissonance of our national consciousness away?

Viewing every opportunity in front of you as something you’re going to fail at before you even try. This is because you have low self-esteem and your attitude and beliefs are only going to perpetuate it.

It’s time to let go and rise above the outdated and cruel exploits of our past that we inherited from our ancestors, and realize that the early misinterpretations of our world do not have to define the future of humanity.

It has long ceased to amaze me what humans are capable of doing to each other, but working together makes anything possible. 

We have reached a time in our history where the misunderstandings of the past must be reconciled and the truth about the origins of our early beliefs must be revealed.

It’s time that our world’s religions face the tragic horrors of their past and make honest progression towards love and kindness for all of humanity.

Finally: 

The present state of the planet is not going to change because all of a sudden we are all beating our chests chanting Maya cupula May cupula. 

It is not going to change because we all agreed it has to be in a forthcoming Climate change conference. It is not going to change because we wish it to do so. 

Actions are the only way it has any hope of changing.  These are enormous and will take years if not decades to achieve.

But here is one action that could be achieved in your lifetime.   

As we witness in both the Para Olympics and the Olympics competition is a gift and as a gift, it is given unconditionally, with nothing expected in return.

Although the Olympics and the Para Olympics shine a light on what is best in humanity’s endeavors, it suffers from the backdrop of a world full of poverty, inequality, and the like. With countries spending millions to host the games or allocating funds to win gold medals when these funds could be used to alleviate foodbanks, social care, health care, etc.  

This unnecessary enormous cost of staging the games could be wiped out if the Olympic Games were permanently held in the country of their origins Greece.  

There is no reason that the countries of the world could not build a permanent Olympic stadium in Greece. 

Such a move would save 3.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) = equal to the annual emissions from about a million cars.

Even setting aside the carbon footprint question it would scrap the bigger-is-better ethos that cities still cling to when they find themselves on the global stage. Which in most cases up to now leave behind multipurpose, venues that become useless eyesores after the games conclude.

We need a radical rethink of how the games are run if we want them to be compatible with our definition of sustainability. 

The green games for a blue planet could be established permanently In Greece.   

How do we get to net-zero emissions?

This question will define the global economy for the next century.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS: ARE WE RIGHT TO BE TALKING ABOUT GOING BACK TO NORMAL OR ARE WE JUST FOOLING OURSELVES.

26 Friday Mar 2021

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( Twenty-minute read) 


Apart from the tragic human consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic, it’s impossible to measure the price of A GLOBAL DEPRESSION OR THE COMING CLIMATE CHANGE, NOT TO MENTION THE SURGING INEQUALITY DRIVEN BY AI.

But rest assured that it will be the young generation that will be saddled with the bill and the consequences and few countries are likely to be left unscathed by the covid -19 outbreak’s financial ramifications.

We have conveniently forgotten if you remember before the pandemic we had a financial meltdown in 2008.

Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, economies were all operating on borrowed money with all of them amassing debts away beyond their annual tax revenues to the point that their budgets were consumed entirely by interest payments.

Greece was on the verge of causing the Euro to collapse while England was in the grips of an austerity program that resulted in Brexit the cost of which has no definitive figure. 

90% of this was big banks creating debts world-wise in the knowledge that they would have to be bailed out by the taxpayers. (Too big to fail is a phrase used to describe a company that’s so entwined in the global economy that its failure would be catastrophic.)

While Wall Street hedge funds, with credit default swaps and sovereignty wealth funds, we’re making hay while the sun-shined, world debts were doubling. 

Take Iceland for example. German banks pumped $21 into its banks, Sweden $400 million, England around $30billion, the Netherlands $300 million, Oxford University a mere $50 million. Iceland’s banks went bankrupt. The government couldn’t bail them out because it didn’t have the money. Instead of being too big to fail, they were too big to save. Iceland never resorted to austere budget cuts that are so prevalent in Europe.

They imposed capital controls. They let the banks fail.

Iceland’s economy successfully survived a sovereign bankruptcy and government collapse.

However, Iceland’s government today is spending a back-breaking 17.3% of its tax revenue just to pay interest on the debt.

Without a doubt, Iceland was and is the canary in the coalmine for the sovereign debt crisis that is now unfolding across the world right now.

With investors around the world suddenly wake up to a sobering reality of a major default… bigger than Iceland in 2008. It won’t be long before we see countries defaulting because of the amount of government borrowing to fight Covid-19 

So what happens when governments themselves ceased to be credible? 

This might be something that had been considered preposterous only months ago but when one looks at what is only the start of a global depression it is now very much on the cards.

It’s important to remember that throughout history humanity has experienced no shortage of pandemics and deadly viruses but despite the similarities, of these pandemics some of the differences are now even more striking.

The economic fallout from these pandemics was barely noticeable. (The same can be said of the Spanish Flu of 1918.)

What is making the COVID-19 pandemic so unique is not the virus itself, but our collective response to it. Governments in their zeal to control society, have destroyed the global economy on a scale the modern world has never seen. These losses are unprecedented in modern history. The loss of human life that can never be recovered is regrettable but there’s a degree of anxiety now that’s well beyond the health scares which are still very serious and concerning.

If we take a look for example at the USA.

Its economic loss is more than twice the total monetary outlay for all the wars the US has fought since September 11, 2001, including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.

Closer to home. 

Millions out of work, industries losing billions, and that’s just the beginning. Transportation companies losing billions in market value with tourism the restaurant and foodservice industry decimated with real estate defaults looming.

Further afield the so-called least Developed Countries, whose economies are driven by the sale of raw materials, will not be spared either. Latin American region as similarly vulnerable.

In addition to global poverty, the pandemic has adversely affected vaccination rates, HIV transmission, gender equality, education, and more. Unfortunately, these problems won’t be reversed overnight—or anytime soon.

When will things go back to normal?

Never.  

Our society is fundamentally flawed, with a devastating financial storm more than likely on its way we cannot simply hit the reset button and go back to normal.

As we go about rebuilding our society for a new day, it is absolutely critical that we focus our efforts on healing the wounds of the people who suffered most.

We all know that the distribution of wealth is key to any recovery and we are going to witness in this pandemic and subsequent economic depression how inequality is the main cause s of why our world is in such a mess. 

So if we want a world worth living in we must address the distribution of wealth along with education.

( The Solution.

Embedding equity and empathy into our cultures by reimagining schools and the introduction of a Universal Basis Living Wage. 

Rather than preparation education (to enter a world of I am all right Jack ) we should be promoting core values education.

This education should be free to all paid for by the state. Not designed by wealthy white men paying the minimum wage, awarding themselves dividends, launching profit-seeking algorithms, running plundering sovereignty wealth funds, leaving the young generation with massive debt.

After two decades of progress around the world, nearly 37 million people have lost significant amounts of income and are now living on less than $1.90 per day. 

There is little point in governments spending billions on projects that enrich the few while their citizens have to resort to food banks, social welfare, etc. 

While Countries’ debts are ballooning exponentially, due in part to combating Covid-19, the fourth industrial revolution in the form of Technology is eroding the opportunities of earning a living or sharing in the profits of automation, machine learning, etc. 

It is not possible to stop the erosion but it is possible to share the wealth in a fair and meaningful way with a guaranteed income that would cut government costs while stimulating economic recovery. 

By scrapping the concept of the welfare state a form of structural inequality and replace it with a government-guaranteed payment to provide financial security

Cash is the best thing you can do to improve health outcomes, education outcomes and lift people out of poverty.  

It would stop people from emigrating not just to other countries but to cities.

The social welfare state is what prevents the poor from building their wealth to better their lives.

How could it be financed?  

Place a 0.05% aid commission on revenue made by profit-seeking algorithms and tax the top 1% and allocate 10 to 12% of GDP directly to the universal income payments.

The benefit would automatically rise with national prosperity and inflation.

The simplicity of the program means it would also cost governments less.

It is inevitable. If we don’t we will rebuild an exclusionary society.) 

                                                ————–

Germany, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S. are all in the top 10 spenders, all conjure money out of thin air and funnels it to the government.

There will be inquiries.  How long of a sentence does someone get for railroading his nation’s economy? Life? 30-years? 10-years?

Where should we begin to rebuild our lives?

There are a number of possible futures however if we don’t take this opportunity to build a future that is more humane we will slide into something far worse.

The responses so far to the pandemic are simply the amplification of the dynamic that drives other social and ecological crises.

The overriding priority remains to save lives.

However, understanding human behavior in its wider economic context is necessary if we are to solve climate change or if we are to tackle future pandemics problems all created by our economic structure.

Both are socially driven. 

With every week that passes, we learn more about the virus and understand more about how to defeat it. But the more we learn, the more we realize how little the world yet understands about the true nature of the threat – except that it is a shared one that we must all work together to defeat. 

Now is the time to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men’s fatal striving to control society – a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization…

The world is “not at the mercy of the virus called covid, but the fuse is burning on the bomb – Climate Change. 

It is at the mercy of Profit for profit’s sake that must be harnessed to affect change.

(See previous posts) 

At the end of the day, the Icelandic people are responsible back in 2008 for their collapse. They were never bailed out. They were stuck with the bill.

It does not take a genius to describe the changes that are needed.   

 

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. IF YOU LOOK AROUND YOU AT THE PRESENT STATE OF THE WORLD YOU SHOULD NOT BE FORGIVEN FOR FEELING DISPARE.

17 Sunday Jan 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change., COVID-19, Dehumanization., Digital age., Disaster Capitalism., Earth, How to do it., Human values., Humanity., Imagination., Inequality., Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., Poverty, Robot citizenship., Social Media Regulation., Stimulus package., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., Universal Basic Income., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Aid.

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(Fifteen-minute read) 

As we floundering around in the midst of COMPOUNDING PANDEMICS that are far from over, the future is not here yet.

With our planet is crying out, our political leaders are like fish out of water, apart from the obvious, it seems that we have lost the plot. Compounded by ignorance, short term self-interest, the pursuit of wealth, and political interests, any actions that are vital for survival are stymieing by the lack of conciliation. 

Climate Change, Biodiversity, Artificial Intelligence, Poverty and Inequality, Population all on the top of the list. All of them are presenting overwhelming challenges ahead.

There is no way of sugar-coating any of these threats, they have no borders.

We are brought up with other people’s perceptions of life.  

Not until we develop enough, intellectually, can we change those perceptions, and even then it can be difficult to change our perceptions about the world until we start to really question it.

Anything else is a blatant lie.

With millions of dead and millions more death to come, we can only prevent any one of them from coming to fruition if we take all of them especially the environmental threat seriously.

With large swaths of people still dealing with entrenched inequalities, it is no wonder we are unable to see the above threats as reality. 

If there was ever a time to join together it is now.

We all have an identity and cultural distinctiveness, but if we bound together in a common cause, we could accomplish spectacular things.

To do this we must first start to see ourselves as HUMAN BEINGS, and the planet earth as HOME, not our individual countries.  

                                                   ————

I am sure you will agree that the world order is destined to change and it’s urgent that humanity gets a way to preserve what’s left on Earth. 

In this regard, technology is not a destiny jobs will be for robots and life for people.  

The problem is who is the owner of the robots and how do we ensure that we all benefit. 

At the moment there are millions wasting their time in useless jobs to scratch a living.  Rest assured that capitalism will come up with millions of more useless jobs. 

                                                 ————

Unfortunately, we are not able to act as one, and even if we could there would be no point in becoming mindless drones with no culture.

There would be no point in living because it’ would be all just be one culture with no distinct forms. 

The raw reality exposed by the current pandemic is that everyone is only just a human unable to act as one due to greed-driven by unregulated social media and profit-seeking algorithms.

                                                  ———– 

The big question is what can be done?

SOLUTIONS WITHOUT FUNDING, ABOUND ON TED TALKS. 

We know that poverty is one of the main driving forces when it comes to any long term perspective to protecting the earth.

Poverty is not due to a lack of knowledge. POVERTY IS CREATED BY SCARCITY, not a personality defect as Maggie Thatcher once said.

As George Orwell said  “Poverty annihilates the Future “

 You would think by now we would have figured out the reasons for its existence.  

ALMOST EVERYTHING NEEDED FOR LIFE IS MADE SCARCE BY APPLYING CAPITALIST PROFIT, TURNING ALMOST EVERYTHING INTO A PRODUCT TO BE TRADED.   

SO WHEN ONE IS UNABLE TO ACQUIRE WHAT IS NEEDED DUE TO THE LACK OF CASH YOU HAVE POVERTY.   If we genuinely ask why do the poor make so many bad decisions THIS IS THE MAIN REASON. 

Till now we have ignored the symptoms of poverty to our cost, and now to the chilling silence of Earth protests, we find ourselves unable to enjoy the Earth we live on. 

To date, we have created World organizations without the power of funding that vents verbal warnings,  that no one takes heed of unless it is in their own interest to do so

Take Co2 admissions. We continue to pump Co2 into our shared atmosphere.  (Earth isn’t the only planet in our solar system with an atmosphere, it is the only one in which we humans can survive.) 

It is blatantly obvious that we are not able through our global conversation whether they are online or not due to profit-taking we are not able to establish any solidarity. 

A lot of religious people mentioned that there is a leader who is going to save this world and stands for oppressed, poor, and homeless people.

While we are waiting we need to be more creative in our imagination if we want to match the relentless progression of biodiversity loss, climate change, and the other problems facing us all that are going to drive the Scarcity market.   

 A basic income is an idea that has and is being kicked from pillar to post for years.

Free money for everybody.

Not the welfare state but AN INCOME FOR ALL –  UNCONDITIONAL YOU DO WHAT YOU WANT WITH IT.

Where will the cash come from?

( See previous posts. A World Commission of 0.05%)

Of course, no one or anybody is going to take on or take down the holy grail of profit for profit’s sake.

After all, we live in societies that have allowed themselves to be subsumed by greed with ethics still being sacrificed on the altar of turnover and growth at all costs- GDP.

What is truly galling though is how the rot persists, where people cannot see the direct causal link, to overconsumption prompted by the advertising industries.

Profit is not intrinsically bad, but profit for profit’s sake alone is not just bad it’s unimaginably damaging.

Profit has to be extracted in such a way that every partner in the supply chain profits; from the workers to the shareholders, from the local community through to the nation itself.

That means creating a system where people are empowered to speak, where processes are so transparent that nothing can be hidden and where part of those profits is reinvested into those communities to sustain growth and development for generations to come.

So before we find ourselves teetering over the edge of the precipice. We need to speak truth to power when we start to feel discomfited, not when we have already entered the realm of cognitive dissonance or, worse, open and cynical collusion in the Bell Pottinger mode.

We have been gifted by the current pandemic which is yet to reach its apogee. It is daring us not to be paralyzed by our past.

It is offering a chance to find and resolve, to do things differently.

To call out the emperors of technology, when they stride about us in their unabashed nudity to put sustainability at the core of their online and off-line operations. 

They are now the praetorian guard of citizen and corporate activists and it is essential in this post-covid-19 economic depression that society should be saved from exploitation.

Unfortunately, they are unable to regulate themselves. This can be done only when the state interferes with total transparency. 

Is it not time that all non-essential products are labeled with their carbon footprint. 

What is Cash but transparency, in its naked form, creating fair competitions.   

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

while we pump CO2 in

https://youtu.be/aIL_Y9g7Tg0

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. IS IT SHAME ON YOU ENGLAND.

28 Saturday Nov 2020

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2020: The year we need to change., Aid, Civilization., Climate Change., Foreign Aid., G20., G7., GDP., How to do it., Humanity., Inequality., Our Common Values., Politics., Post-Covid-19, Poverty, Sustaniability, The art of a handshake., The common good., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Six-minute read) 

 

Here is a nation that made its wealth from an Empire that exploited most of the world.

Victoria

It is now leaving the European Union which was set up with the aim of ending the frequent and bloody wars between neighbors. 

Reneging on its commitment to spend 0.07% of its gross national income on foreign aid because charity begins at home.

In the middle of a financial meltdown,  turning its self into a parochial country on the world stage.

Agreed a four-year £16.5bn surge in defense spending in the middle of a pandemic, while 1.9 million of its people are relying on a food bank.   

Spending around 160 billion to save 30 minutes by rail from London to Birmingham. (Creating around 30,000 temporary jobs.) While by this time next year there is every likelihood that its unemployed will reach 3 million must of which will be under 25 years of age. 

Aid is a fundamental reaction of most individuals when they see or hear of someone in need. 

This is why we have appeal’s from saving a donkey to save a penguin to save a child to donate to cancer research to donate to the poor to donate blood to relieve famine. 

It is true that aid on an individual basis comes in many forms with countries’ government foreign aid reflecting our collective compassion.

It is also true that Aid is sometimes abused both by the recipient and the giver.          

Perhaps the toxic environment caused by the excesses of the tabloid media over the last 30 years and now social media has something to do with our harding attitude that Aid starts at home. But with our inability to act as one on climate change we will all have to become better at emergency aid and rather worse at development aid.

Indeed financial aid over the last 30 years or so has proved to be  “an excellent method for transferring money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.” However, in the long run when it comes to aiding it’s cheaper to send them the money rather than them having to come to claim it.

Aid politicized economies and therefore it often comes with a price of its own. 

Rich nations use aid as a lever to open poor country markets to their products and create beneficial trades with aid amounts being dwarfed by rich country protectionism that denies market access for poor country products.

Britain and the USA only believe in free markets that work in one direction.

Aid may be bilateral and multilateral if it is bilateral happens when: the given is from one country directly to another; and multilateral: when is given by the donor country to an international organization such as the World Bank (WB) or the United Nations Agencies (UNDP, UNICEF, UNAIDS, etc.) which in many cases they are the ones who distribute it among the developing countries.

The proportion is currently about 70% bilateral 30% multilateral, according to the World Bank statistics.

Even though the relationship between globalization, development, poverty, and foreign aid is not always clear, as long as the poorest countries are not integrated to work in their own development process, the world has not benefitted or learned from globalization especially from developed neighbor countries, who can give support in many conditions to work from the same goal, the success of development.

Paradox as aid to Africa has grown, the continent has actually become poorer rather than better off.

Of all the aid given to developing countries the smartphone allowed trade to take place without a middle man, and to know the market price has done more than all the billions.

Trade, not aid, it doesn’t have to mean money all the time.

Trade has a long-term impact on international co-operation.

Trade helps developing countries to maintain their dignity,

Trade establishes a strong impression in the international market, 

Trade promotes the economical improvement of the country 

Trade requires investment first.

Trade is treated as an inefficient distributor of resources. The benefit of trade is mostly confined to an elite group of people in the country.

Thoughtful aid can de accelerate this process.

It is not so much trade vs aid – but what quality and type of aid are given.

But more importantly for us to see the difference it makes.  We should be aiding poorer countries to do things themselves, not doing things for them.

( See the previous post on the Solution on how to finance and distribute Aid while maintaining the Mantra Charity starts a home.)  

It seems the brightest people are no longer attracted to politics. 

John Donne wrote in “For Whom the Bell Tolls”: “No man is an island, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

All human contributions appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WHAT ARE MODERN DAY VALUES AND THEIR ROLE IN OUR LIVES.

20 Saturday Jun 2020

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2020: The year we need to change., A Constitution for the Earth., Capitalism, Climate Change., COVID-19, Dehumanization., Digital age., Disconnection., Economic Depression., Environment, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Future Education., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Inequality., Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., Poverty, Reality., Reverse racism., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Unanswered Questions., VALUES, WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Economic Depression., World Leaders, World Racism

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(Twenty-minute read) 

This is a vast subject which is not possible to address in an 800-word blog.

However, values role’s in our lives and their importance is not always fully understood.

Values are the things that are important to us, the foundation of our lives.

What I am interested in here is exploring the influence of technology and its advancement and how it now relates to the modification of cultural values.

Technology commonly exerts a strong influence on daily practices, changing the way values are carried out with each new development.

Will this in the end ‘kill’ our social cohesion and will groups of people be left out? Or will our social interaction become extensive and will our relationships get better? Are there any common values left? 

These are all questions that can’t be answered yet and can only be answered in the future. 

Technology is all around us.

It is so pervasive in our everyday life that it is impossible to get away from it.

It has become almost invisible so that most of us don’t know how to interact in the real world or with our environment, but it is how humans are using technology that is so devastating our common values. 

Before COVID-19 we were already isolating ourselves from physical contact with smartphones.

The virus has pushed us further apart with social distancing, online education, and social platforms replacing almost all forms of entertainment.   

Are we connected better nowadays with social media, or are we worse off?’

One of the aspects of culture and values is social interaction between people. How we behave to one another and in which way we do that. Social media has taken a big role in our social interaction. We no longer have to speak to a person to know what they are doing. We just look on twitter of Facebook. 

Social media and smartphones both are turning us into non-empathic couch potatoes and it is this passive use of technology that is the reason technology is ruining not just our values but humanity itself. 

With the arrival of COVID-19 ( His “epidemic”) technology isn’t allowing the young generation to truly embrace our humanity while creating a gap between generations. 

The real connection such as visual and emotional expressions aren’t shown anymore, because we are looking at a computerized display. This way messages could be understood differently than they should be, because they don’t get to know the real meaning behind the message.

If Facebook was a country, it would be the world’s 3rd largest country in terms of population. 

Now is the opportunity to realize this and that we must use technology as a tool, not reality.

Our overbearing dependence on technology can be detrimental to society.

It is not the be-all and end-all of everything. Everyone is entitled to their own values, attitudes, and beliefs.

For example. From the outside, the cultural values ​​of a group can often be difficult to understand. 

In India, 80% of the population practices the Hindu religion. For the believers of this religion, the figure of the cow is venerated and should not be sacrificed. In western culture, this is a strange cultural value, since cows are a source of food and not of worship. 

or

Some people may see great value in saving the world’s rainforests. However, a person who relies on the logging of a forest for their job may not place the same value on the forest as a person who wants to save it.

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Before the coronavirus crisis exploded and confronted us with a life-and-death threat to every corner of our planet those who worked in what could be called taken for granted jobs we not valued neither in money terms or the essential services they provided to us all.

As a result, society discovered new heroes.

Times of crisis bring out the best in us. Superficial concerns fall away and we rediscover what really matters: Our values.

Now that the Pandemic in the western world is coming under control (we hope) and the murder of a colored man in the USA our worldwide values which have been honed by decades of biased history are coming under the spotlight, not just our personal views but societies as a whole.

BUT WHAT ARE THOSE VALUES AND HAVE DUG DOWN TO CORE VALUES AND WILL WE PUT THEM INTO ACTION?

It is easy to compile a list of personnel values and at the same time aspire to universal values of peace, human dignity, equal human rights, and freedom values.   

They are at the core of our being. They are our motivators, our drivers, the passion in our hearts, the reason we do the things we do and feel the way we feel. They help us to make better choices in life, develop healthy patterns of behavior, and form and maintain meaningful personal relationships.

They are the compass guiding everything we do – our choices and our actions.

So, if we want to change the world for the better, then we have to change
our own behaviors.

Living by your personal values sounds easy—at least in theory. Your values, after all, are simply the things that are important to you in life, so it should be natural to live by them.

Here are some more questions to get you started:

  1. What’s important to you in life?
  2. If you could have any career, without worrying about money or other practical constraints, what would you do?
  3. When you’re reading news stories, what sort of story or behavior tends to inspire you?
  4. What type of story or behavior makes you angry?
  5. What do you want to change about the world or about yourself?
  6. What are you most proud of? 
  7. When were you the happiest?

Think about our most important values and to act on them.

Living your values is about more than the big, long-term goals, however, it’s also about the small, day-to-day decisions. Putting them into action each and every day will have a powerful impact on our own wellbeing, the wellbeing of the groups and communities we belong to, and the wellbeing of the whole world.

The passive use of Technology is the reason technology is ruining our Humanity. 

Why is technology ruining humanity?

The only reason people do things is that life gives them the opportunity to do so. Which by extent, whether they know it or not, implies that people value their life.

Behind every use of technology is a person, as behind every murder, there is also a person.

We are about to pass through a long and very painful period of adjustment which is fraught with danger at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine.

As the noose of technological enslavement tightens on humanity will our values have any value?

They say that innovations in technology can save the world and is extending democracy. I say that it is concentrating even more power in the hands of a tiny elite.

Personal Values are formulated by a variety of influences, environmental influences including upbringing, religion, friends, family, peers, and, education not by algorithms, virtual reality.    

Until we get better at using technology as a tool I think we’re cooked, we’re going to continue to extinct species and we’re going to continue to dig the hole deeper of the whole eco-social crisis.

If you just hold your cell phone for 30 seconds and think backward through its production you have the entire techno-industrial culture wrapped up there.

You can’t have a smartphone an I pad or use Social media without everything that goes with it. You see mining, transportation, manufacturing, computers, high-speed communications, satellite communications, it’s all there, you see and it’s that techno-industrial culture that’s destroying the world.

The only way we’ll be able to responsibly harness the fruits that technology bears are with a renewed attitude of cooperation and care for the most vulnerable among us.

Technology has given us the tools to reshape how we live in the world; if it also changes the way we interact with our neighbors, it can be transformational.

Technology can inspire progressive social policies. When 62 billionaires have as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population, it’s clear that political principles are skewed toward the influential in business.

Overall, technology has the potential to reduce suffering, fight disease, and level the playing field for the poor if we use it as a tool, not as values.

Values are immensely powerful!

We know that human history is full of hideous, horrible acts, but it is important it explains why things are the way thy are. The problem is that is it not taught in schools without warts so no one gets a free pass.

History is the past it cannot be changed.   

But mature humans don’t live in the past and we need to start seeing each other as fellow humans. If we do so maybe we can start addressing the real cause of inequality in our societies which is our present economic systems. 

However, you don’t have to go into the future to see what is happing.  In the last forty years, we have wiped out 40% of our wildlife, acidified our oceans, pumped CO2 into the atmosphere, destroyed vast regions for livestock, ignored world natural disasters all for the sake of short term profits.  

If we don’t have a fucking healthy biodiversity-ecosystem there will be no need for profits or values.

With world economies, slowly reopening, I won’t hold my breath as it is easier to keep viewing thinks as black and white and profit for profit sake, not Clickbait.       

We all deserve to be treated as human beings of worth.

However because values are culture-bound, what’s good for one culture may be (and often is) deemed an abomination by another.

Herein lies the ultimate irresolvable dilemma.

Culture gives us prescriptions for appropriate conduct. When judging values, we should not speak in terms of right or wrong, black or white rather we should look at competing values in terms of better and worse.

Who’s to say what my values will be in 2030?

When I hear competing values shouted by a person from a different culture than mine, I hope to take a deep breath, realize that he/she is simply expressing a deep need they have, and then perhaps I can share my values and needs without fostering judgment, evaluations of their character, or moralistic analysis.

In the end, compassionate dialogue changes live, not right/wrong judgment, or taking the keen. 

All comments valued. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S : Where will we be in six months, a year, ten years from now?

31 Tuesday Mar 2020

Posted by in 2020: The year we need to change., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Climate Change., CORONA VIRUS., COVID-19, Dehumanization., Democracy., Digital age., Disconnection., Environment, Evolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Inequality, Life., Lock Down., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Political Trust, Politics., Populism., Post - truth politics., Poverty, Reality., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The Future, The Internet., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Truthfulness., Unanswered Questions., VALUES, Wealth., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Economy., World Organisations., World Politics

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( An essential twenty-minute read) 



It all depends on how governments and society respond to coronavirus and its economic aftermath.

As we know COVID-19 is highlighting serious deficiencies in our existing system. 

Hopefully, we will use this crisis to rebuild, produce something better and more humane. But we may slide into something worse.

My focuses on this post are on the fundamentals of the modern economy: global supply chains, wages, and productivity.

I argue that we will need a very different kind of economics if we are to build socially just and ecologically sound futures.

In the face of COVID-19, this has never been more obvious.

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The COVID-19 pandemic is simply the amplification of the dynamic that drives other social and ecological crises: The prioritisation of one type of value over others. 

From an economic perspective, there are four possible futures:

Descent into barbarism, robust state capitalism, radical state socialism, and a transformation into a big society built on mutual aid.

Coronavirus, like climate change, is partly a problem of our economic structure. Although both appear to be “environmental” or “natural” problems, they are socially driven.

Yes, climate change is caused by certain gases absorbing heat. But that’s a very shallow explanation. To really understand climate change, we need to understand the social reasons that keep us emitting greenhouse gases.

Likewise with COVID-19. Yes, the direct cause is the virus. But managing its effects requires us to understand human behaviour and its wider economic context.

Tackling both COVID-19 and climate change is much easier if you reduce nonessential economic activity.

The epidemiology of COVID-19 is rapidly evolving. But the core logic is similarly simple. People mix together and spread infections.

We can see from Wuhan that social distancing and lockdown measures like this are effective.

Political economy is useful in helping us understand why they weren’t introduced earlier in European countries and the US.

We are now facing a serious recession and we are living with an economic system that will threaten collapse at the next sign of pandemic.

The economics of collapse is fairly straightforward.

Businesses exist to make a profit.

If they can’t produce, they can’t sell things. This means they won’t make profits, which means they are less able to employ you.

Businesses can and do (over short time periods) hold on to workers that they don’t need immediately: They want to be able to meet demand when the economy picks back up again. But, if things start to look really bad, then they won’t. So, more people lose their jobs or fear to lose their jobs. So they buy less. And the whole cycle starts again, and we spiral into an economic depression.

In a normal crisis, the prescription for solving this is simple.

The government spends, and it spends until people start consuming and working again.

This pressure has led some world leaders to call for an easing of lockdown measures.

But normal interventions won’t work here because we don’t want the economy to recover (at least, not immediately). The whole point of the lockdown is to stop people going to work, where they spread the disease.

If we want to be more resilient to pandemics in the future (and to avoid the worst of climate change) we need a system capable of scaling back production in a way that doesn’t mean loss of livelihood.

At its core, the economy is the way we take our resources and turn them into the things we need to live.

Looked at this way, we can start to see more opportunities for living differently that allow us to produce less stuff without increasing misery.

So how do you reduce the amount of stuff you make while keeping people in work?

You have to reduce people’s dependence on a wage to be able to live.

Currently, the primary aim of the global economy is to facilitate exchanges of money. The dominant idea of the current system we live in is that exchange value is the same thing as use-value.

This is why markets are seen as the best way to run society. They allow you to adapt, and are flexible enough to match up productive capacity with use-value.

What COVID-19 is throwing into sharp relief is just how false our beliefs about markets are. 

There are lots of contributing factors to this. But let’s take two.

First, it is quite hard to make money from many of the most essential societal services-key workers low-paid employee. This is in part because a major driver of profits is labour productivity growth: doing more with fewer people – automation.

Second, jobs in many critical services aren’t those that tend to be highest valued in society. Many of the best-paid jobs only exist to facilitate exchanges; to make money.

People are compelled to work pointless jobs (they serve no wider purpose to society: ie. consultants, huge advertising industry and a massive financial sector) because, in a society where exchange value is the guiding principle of the economy, the basic goods of life are mainly available through markets.

This means you have to buy them, and to buy them you need an income, which comes from a job.

Meanwhile, we have a crisis in health and social care, where people are often forced out of useful jobs they enjoy because these jobs don’t pay them enough to live.

While state-capitalist society continues to pursue exchange value as the guiding light of the economy. It also enacts a massive Keynesian stimulus by extending credit and making direct payments to businesses.

The expectation here is that this is will be for a short period.

Could this be a successful scenario?

Possibly, but only if COVID-19 proves controllable over a short period.

Limited state intervention will become increasingly hard to maintain if death tolls rise.

Increased illness and death will provoke unrest and deepen economic impacts, forcing the state to take more and more radical actions to try to maintain market functioning.

Barbarism is the future if we continue to rely on exchange value as our guiding principle and yet refuse to extend support to those who get locked out of markets by illness or unemployment. It describes a situation that we have not yet seen.

Could this happen?

The concern is that either it could happen by mistake during the pandemic, or by intention after the pandemic peaks.

Potentially just as consequential is the possibility of massive austerity after the pandemic has peaked and governments seek to return to “normal”.

This would be disastrous. The subsequent failure of the economy and society would trigger political and stable unrest, leading to a failed state and the collapse of both state and community welfare systems.

Then there is the possibility that we could see with a cultural shift that places a different kind of value at the heart of the economy.

The state steps in to protect the parts of the economy that are essential to life: so that the basic provisions of life are no longer at the whim of the market. The state nationalises hospitals and makes housing freely available. Finally, it provides all citizens with a means of accessing various goods – both basics and any consumer goods we are able to produce with a reduced workforce.

Citizens no longer rely on employers as intermediaries between them and the basic materials of life.

Payments are made to everyone directly and are not related to the exchange value they create.

Instead, payments are the same to all (on the basis that we deserve to be able to live, simply because we are alive), or they are based on the usefulness of the work.

A Basic Universal Income.

Supermarket workers, delivery drivers, warehouse stackers, nurses, teachers, and doctors are the new CEOs.

If deep recessions happen and there is a disruption in supply chains such that demand cannot be rescued by the kind of standard Keynesian policies we are seeing now (printing money, making loans easier to get and so on), the state may take overproduction.

There are risks to this approach – we must be careful to avoid authoritarianism. But done well, this may be our best hope against an extreme COVID-19 outbreak.

Mutual aid is the second future in which we adopt the protection of life as the guiding principle of our economy. But, in this scenario, the state does not take a defining role. Rather, individuals and small groups begin to organise support and care within their communities.

The most ambitious form of this future sees new democratic structures arise. Groupings of communities that are able to mobilise substantial resources with relative speed. People coming together to plan regional responses to stop disease spread and (if they have the skills) to treat patients.

This kind of scenario could emerge from any of the others.

What hopefully is clear is that all these scenarios leave some grounds for fear, but also some for hope.

The upside of this is the possibility that we build a more humane system that leaves us more resilient in the face of future pandemics and other impending crises like climate change. 

A key task for us all is demanding that emerging social forms come from an ethic that values care, life, and democracy.

The central political task in this time of crisis is living and (virtually) organising around those values.

Not low-paid workers or National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage because their work is so vital.

Successive governments had failed to reduce inequality between rich and poor despite two decades of interventions.

We must now with an uncertain future focus more on the journey, rather than the ultimate destination.

But be no doubt that we are at a crossroad where the low pay culture that has trapped people in poorly jobs is coming to an end. 

Capitalism Inequality can not be allowed to continue. 

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. WE ALL KNOW WHAT TO DO BUT ARE WE WILLING.

23 Monday Mar 2020

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2020: The year we need to change., Capitalism, COCID-19, CORONA VIRUS., Disconnection., Human values., Humanity., Inequality, Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., Poverty, Reality., Refugees., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, VALUES, Wealth., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Economy.

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(Five-minute read) 


STOP DESTROYING OUR PLANET:
It’s no secret that our planet is in a pretty dire condition.

The problem is a massive one.

It’s so big that there are things that you do every day that are helping to bring about the end of the world, and chances are that you might not even know it.

Here are a few.

China produces a whopping 80 billion disposable chopsticks every year. The vast majority are used—and thrown away—That kind of production takes 20 million trees, and not just any trees.

Estrogen, one of the active ingredients in birth control pills and hormone therapy treatments, was introduced into a freshwater lake research facility in Ontario. 

The impact was almost immediate. Male fish first began producing egg proteins and then producing eggs.

Wastewater treatment and its impact on freshwater ecosystems.

Hormones that aren’t absorbed or used end up in the sewer system after they cycle through the human body. In areas where sewer water is dumped into lakes and rivers, the average fish population is about 85 per cent female. The cause has been traced back to the release of improperly treated wastewater that contains hormones from hormone therapy drugs and birth control pills. A stark contrast to the normal 55 per cent. Fish exposed to the hormones not only lose the ability to reproduce, but their accidental hormone treatment impacts eggs at the development stage as well.

Prozac. Might have something to do with the decline in the starling population over the last few decades—to the tune of about 50 million birds. 

Drinking straws. 

The United States alone uses about 500 million drinking straws made from a polypropylene plastic that doesn’t disintegrate or dissolve.

These millions of straws are around forever, making up a huge part of the estimated 12 to 24 tons of plastic that end up ingested by fish and other marine wildlife every year. And that includes about one million seabirds that die after eating plastics. One of the most common items found in autopsies? The drinking straws that come attached to juice boxes.

Eating frogs.

The fungus that’s being spread by the live food trade is different than one that’s being blamed for most of the recent die-offs.

The consequences of the fungus and its ability to hybridize create the potential to unleash an epidemic across the globe.

Antibacterial soaps, washing liquids/tablets use triclocarban and triclosan, chemicals while most of those chemicals are removed from wastewater when they’re run through a treatment plant, they have to go somewhere. When triclocarban degrades, it degrades into two chemicals—both carcinogens.

When triclosan is run through a treatment plant to make drinking water, it doesn’t exactly make safe drinking water. Instead, it makes other chemicals that can include chloroform. And those chemicals travel through the food chain in plants, animals, and ultimately humans.

Farm-raised fish.

Shrimp aquaculture has resulted in the large-scale degradation of coastal areas, the destruction of wetlands, and salinization of freshwater areas and drinking water. Salmon farming relies on the release of fish food and nutrients into the water, which always results in wasted feed and a huge amount of fish droppings in the water

Extra waste products end up sinking to the bottom where they react with the medicines and other nutrients used to keep the fish healthy along with antifoulant agents used to keep nets clean. That means fish farms are a breeding ground for sea lice, which are as disgusting as they sound. More chemicals are used to control the sea lice, which end up killing the other marine life that was supposed to be in the area in the first place.

Not the eco-friendly choice you’d think.

Soybeans 80 per cent of the world’s soy production goes into livestock feed.

1.2 million hectares of soy was planted in Brazil’s rain forest in 2005 alone. 

Global food waste. 

Every year, global food waste amounts to about 1.3 billion tons, and that’s such a big number that it’s impossible to imagine. Meanwhile, about 870 million people are starving.

Inequality: Lack of Healthcare, Nutrition and Education.

We all know that the world’s richest 1 per cent, those with more than $1 million, own 44 per cent of the world’s wealth. In many countries, a decent education or quality healthcare has become a luxury only the rich can afford.

Being poor all too often means more sickness and an earlier grave. 

The story of inequality in many developed countries, including the U.S. and U.K., is more sobering. However, when you are born in a poor place where every tenth child dies, as the well-to-do’s share of the national economic pie surges, a pandemic is a joke.

So what can be done to right this unsettling imbalance and restore a sense of opportunity for the billions of people who are being excluded from the gains of economic development?

The first and most important step may ultimately be recognizing the scope and scale of the problems caused by inequality in the first place and resolving to do something about them.  

Inequality is out of control with the human costs devastating.

Like many other environmental problems, there’s absolutely no easy answer but it is time we opened our eyes.

Ironically, with the coming economic collapse due to the coronavirus, we might finally be recognizing inequality’s great economic costs may be just the motivation that financial interests need to take the issue seriously.

Its not Amazon fortune and power that will grow exponentially.

The growing gap between rich and poor is undermining the fight against poverty, damaging our economies and tearing our societies apart.

If not with climate change added to next pandemic it won’t be the virus that kills you but the influx of refugees. 

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: THIS CORONA VIRUS IS ASKING ALL OF US WHAT TYPE OF WORLD DO WE WANT?

19 Thursday Mar 2020

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2020: The year we need to change., CORONA VIRUS., COVID-19, Disasters., Disconnection., Evolution, Honesty., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Inequality, Life., Modern day life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Poverty, Reality., Refugees., Religious Beliefs., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The current state of our oceans., The essence of our humanity., The Future, THE FUTURE OF OUR OCEANS/SEAS, The Obvious., The Refugees, The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Truthfulness., Unanswered Questions., VALUES, War., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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(Seven-minute read) 

I know that humans are the only type of species that are suitable to manage the earth but it does not make them the right species!

Apparently not.

Did we ever think that we would be living in a world where it is life-threatening to go our side and I am not talking about terrorists or any other Hollywood science fiction movie scenario?

There’s a lot of bad news out there but this is not a death sentence. 

 It’s time to save the world. ” We can use it as we wish”

No one owns the earth. No one has the right to do whatever they want.

We’re not the only thing that lives here, nor are we more important in any way.

We cannot use the world as we please as our actions are endangering not just us but other species. 

Our Earth was meant to be lived on in union with its Ecosystems and we cannot allow that to be broken.

The Coronavirus ( Covid  19 ) is illuminating what is wrong with our world. 

So our most crucial life questions are: 

What Kind of World Do We Want to Leave to Our Children?

Whatever your interest — whether it’s the environment, health care, poverty, or education — there are simple steps each of us can take to make life better not just for someone in our own community. 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” now needs an Earth Declaration. 

Here are the top six of my non-legal binding the goals.  

Use Global Warming to Solve Global Warming.

Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts to protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss.

Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development.

Sustainable Development Goals which will take years for a critical mass of governments to actually rally behind. 

The allocation of resources to fight climate change and other environmental issues over the next decade can be achieved by making a profit for profit sake pay. ( See the previous post on a 0.05% World Aid Commission. How it could be implemented so the costs are spread fairly) 

End poverty in all its forms everywhere.

Global poverty. Reduce inequality within and among countries. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

Expand access to clean drinking water, green energy.

Artificial Intelligence and Automation. 

The 2020s sounds like such a radical futuristic decade however to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development requires a coherent and plausible conception of social justice. A basic income, a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement.

Stop the sale of arms. 

The estimate of the total value of the global arms trade in 2017 was at least $95 billion.* However, the true figure is likely to be higher. On any given day at any given moment in your life, there are at least 15 wars and armed conflicts actively going on all around the world — even if you’re only hearing about a few of them on the news.

There are an estimated 11-12 million refugees in the world today with between 12-24 million Internally Displaced Persons.

Electoral Reform with Citizens’ Assemblies. 

These aren’t just focus groups or consultations though but for the members to engage in serious, informed reflection on important policy matters with people they may never normally meet.

As Hubert Reeves ( Canadian-French Astrophysicist) say’s, ” Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and Destroys a Visible Nature. Unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshipping “

Feel free to have idea sex between your ideas and mine so we can come up with even better ideas. It’s a way of saying: “We agree that these are the world’s top priorities right now.”

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT THE CRISES FACING THE WORLD.

08 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by in 2020: The year we need to change., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Disasters., Environment, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Inequality, Life., Modern day life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Poverty, Survival., Sustaniability, Technology, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., VALUES, War, WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations., World Politics

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Five minute read.

With all aspects of our life made into a form of viewing entertainment. We live in a world that has become desensitized. 

The result is that most if not all of us pay little attention to the state of Earth.

The drawn-out nature of many crises now facing us all underscores the importance of coming together to urgently resolve the root causes of a humanitarian crisis.

It is unlikely the situation will improve. 

 Where do you even start? Which issues are the most urgent?

 

So this post is not intended to be an exhaustive list. Rather, it serves as an overview of some of the major issues all global citizens should be aware of.

Sometimes it can seem as though there are too many – from climate change to inequality around the world, too many people living without access to medical care its not worth knowing. 

But just in case here is why we are in such a mess. 

12.9% of the world is undernourished, about 30% of the adult population is overweight.

Conflict continues to drive displacement and food insecurity but communicable diseases are still responsible for 71% of deaths.

The international community, and in particular wealthy nations, are failing to meaningfully share the responsibility for protecting people who have fled their homes in search of safety. 

  • 25.9 million refugees globally — the highest level ever recorded
  • Half of the world’s refugees are children
  • A third of refugees — 6.7 million people — is hosted by the world’s poorest countries
A mother rocks her sick child in a camp in Afghanistan's Badghis' Muqur district, where the IRC supports displaced families.

Driven by nearly two decades of conflict and political instability; 9.4 million Afghans (25 per cent of the population) need humanitarian assistance. There are almost 2.5 million registered Afghan refugees living outside the country.

4.6 million Venezuelans have fled the country as of November 2019. 

There are over 2 million displaced Nigerians.

Eleven million Syrians (65 per cent of the population) are in need of humanitarian assistance.

The Democratic Republic of Congo 15.9 million people require humanitarian assistance. 

Over 24 million Yemenis (80 per cent of the population) are in need of humanitarian assistance,

South Sudan 7.5 million people need humanitarian assistance. 

600 million children are not mastering basic mathematics and literacy while at school.

Forests are key to producing the air we breathe, yet these are being depleted at a rate of 26 million hectares every year.

Extinctions are happening at what scientists estimate to be about 1,000 times the normal pace. Not only are we losing flora and fauna, but we are also damaging our ecosystems, and throwing them out of balance

Our oceans are under threat.  

Sand and gravel are now the most-extracted materials in the world, exceeding fossil fuels and biomass.

Climate change is another issue.

There is actually not enough fresh water for each person currently living on the planet. 

Population growth. The number of people on the planet is set to rise to 9.7 billion in 2050 with 2 billion aged over 60.

More than 61 million jobs have been lost since the start of the global economic crisis in 2008, leaving more than 200 million people unemployed globally.

With 43% of the world’s population connected to the internet, regulatory frameworks are unable to keep up.

In this complex moment in history, in which so many are suffering and the Earth itself is in peril

The cloud of nuclear destruction hangs over each of our days.

But the question remains what kind of society do we want to have?

The reasons behind current trends are many and complex.

The detail of the information that we are beginning to capture about our world is mind-blowing. The granularity of the data we are beginning to collect through advances in technology. While improving our lives through cleaner energy sources, personalized nanomedicine and nano-engineered materials.

In all of these areas, progress will undoubtedly lead to a reduction in conventional jobs and inequality on a global scale not seen before.

But technology alone can not break the self-reinforcing mechanism that causes poverty to persist. 

As highly innovative products emerging will, however, promote inequality if only a few have access to this new technology and the knowledge to master it.

Education is probably the single most important tool for turning technology into an engine for opportunities for all.

Public policies, which are currently mainly focused on fostering economic growth, should focus on providing further opportunities, less inequality and a more sustainable economic, social and environmental future.

Technology is not the solution but it is, for sure, a powerful tool towards achieving this ambitious objective.

Whether it’s turning promises on climate change into action, rebuilding trust in the financial system, or connecting the world to the internet there is an overall lack of long-term investment, which has serious implications for global growth.

But the most astonishing canvas is right in front of us if only we would listen with our ear to the earth we might see the light we cannot see.

In short, the world urgently needs a new, global plan based on genuine international cooperation and a meaningful and fair sharing of responsibilities. 

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

https://youtu.be/dnxRCHVLGRo

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: ARE PROFIT SEEKING ALGORITHMS BUILDING A DIGITAL POORHOUSE, AUTOMATING INEQUALITY WHILE HURTING THE MOST VULNERABLE.

03 Sunday Nov 2019

Posted by in Algorithms., Artificial Intelligence., Capitalism, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Humanity., Inequality, Modern day life., Our Common Values., Poverty, Reality., Technology, The common good., The Future, The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Twenty-minute read)

Should we worry about the rise of artificial intelligence or celebrate it?

Both is the answer.

We all inhabit this new regime of digital data but we don’t all inhabit it in the same way and the pursuit of rapid growth by way of technology won’t solve the huge challenges we face.

A more honest, humane approach is the answer.

If you believe the hype, technology is going to help us end global poverty, that’s easier said than done in a world where most product innovations are geared toward the rich.

The prospect of billions rising up from poverty with nothing more than gadgets is indeed a fanciful notion. This is because poverty is entirely a man-made creation. Capitalism is driven by greed, generating a power structure, which moves wealth disproportionately into the hands of the few.

But why are our societies becoming increasingly unequal, and what can we (or should we) do about it?A homeless man outside Victoria Station in London.

Forget where science ends and ideology begins it is the mechanisms behind the persistence of poverty that counts.

Technology cannot solve the problem of economic disparity.

We often believe that our digital decision-making tools, like algorithms or artificial intelligence or integrated databases, are more objective and more neutral than human beings.

Totally false.

We are building not just ill-conceived mathematical models now micromanage the economy, from advertising to prisons but also hiding the profit of multinational companies in the cloud.

We are building:  A DIGITAL POOR HOUSE.

Even though we live in a hyperconnected world we are watching inequality exploding as we walk past people on the street looking at our smartphones.

The spreading of these kinds of systems is now way beyond just the public service systems that they’re in now. For example, high-frequency trading algorithms that run 99.9% of the world stock exchanges are plundering not just finite resources they are jeopardising our peaceful existence.

Feel free to ignore the weight of the evidence that is now becoming crystal-clear, so stark, that the trade-off of the growth of the economy and the survival of the planet are now intertwined. So we have to go into a mode where we are first educating the people about what’s causing this inequality and acknowledging that technology is part of that cost, and then society has to decide how to proceed.

Deep cultural and political changes are needed in order to think through these technologies in order to get to better systems.

This should apply to all technology – nanotechnology, biotech.

I also really believe we need to stop using these systems to avoid some of the most pressing moral and political dilemmas of our time, which is not just poverty but racism.

Unfortunately, we have Profit-seeking Algorithms that have no moral or ethical bases.

Algorithms — a set of steps computers follow to accomplish a task — are used in our daily digital lives to do everything from making airline reservations to searching the web. They are also increasingly being used in public services, such as systems that decide which homeless person gets housing.

AI with faceless algorithms is worsening the effects and concentrating the power of the wealthy. They are likely to dramatically increase income disparity, perhaps more so than other technologies that have come about recently.

Digital innovation in the form of profit-seeking algorithms that it’s not just going to be benefitting a small fraction of the world’s population, or just a few large corporations. is reinforcing, rather than improving, inequality.

Institutions have embraced digital technologies they are outsourcing the decision to a machine to cut costs avoiding the human costs. They say, “We have this incredible overwhelming need. We don’t have enough resources, so we have to use these systems to make these incredibly difficult decisions.”

If all the resources are automated, then who actually controls the automation?

Is it every one or is it a few select people?

My great fear with these systems is we’re actually using them as a kind of empathy override, meaning that we are struggling with questions that are almost impossible for human beings to make.

We’re smuggling moral and political assumptions into them about who should share in prosperity.

There’s already an expectation that people will be forced to trade one of their human rights, like their information or their privacy, for another human right.

The economic prosperity created by AI should be shared broadly, to benefit all of humanity otherwise they will lead to an even greater disparity between the wealthy and the rest of the world.

If AI takes away people’s jobs and only leaves wealth in the hands of those people owning the robots, then that’s going to exacerbate some trends that are already happening.

People now with “predictive data” have real concerns about informed consent. About how their data is being shared, whether it’s legal and whether it’s morally right.

Why?

Because it is impossible to work out why the algorithms had gone against them, or to find a human caseworker to override the decision.

How can we change the societal mindset that currently discourages a greater sharing of wealth? Or is that even a change we should consider?

We’re using these technologies to avoid important political decisions. Exacerbating the divides between the developed and developing world, and the haves and have nots in our society.

The change will only occur when policymakers and voters understand the true scale of the problem. This is hard when we live in an era that likes to celebrate digitisation — and where the elites are usually shielded from the consequences of those algorithms.

Restoring human dignity to its central place has the potential to set off a profound rethinking of economic priorities and the ways in which societies care for their members, particularly when they are in need. If enough of us want to change the status quo for good, then with our collective creativity, with our hunger to solve really hard problems, we will find technology an incredibly powerful tool in our arsenal.

Technology can move commodities (food, jobs, wealth) from areas of surplus supply to regions with under-served markets.

Technology can only help us if we chose to make the best use of it.

Computing has long been perceived to be a culture-free zone — this needs to change.

Today more people have access to a cell phone than a toilet.

I use that metaphor specifically because I think that these systems, although we talk about them often as disruptors, are really more intensifiers and amplifiers of processes that have been with us for a long time, at least since the 1800s.

At a time of unprecedented global challenges platforms like Google Facebook, Twitter and there like must be made to use the power of their platforms to stop the DIGITAL POOR HOUSE instead of hoarding profits with profit-seeking algorithms.

If not because bias has been a historical norm, it because us the users of your platform will develop self-defence.

So, next time if you think AI is not affecting you, take out your smartphone.

If Twitter’s not your choice of poison, maybe it’s Facebook or Instagram, or Snapchat or any of the myriad of social media apps out there they are all affecting your decisions and our lifestyles every day.

They are all tailored according to what we are likely to respond to. specifically designed to attract the attention of its members – and so inevitably to confirm them in their opinions and prejudices,  with several extra bills to pay in order to remain a normal citizen. 

Its a ‘mean’ not the ultimate solution.

AI has become so successful in determining our interests and serving us ads that the global digital ad industry has crossed trillions.

artificial intelligence concept Stock Photo - 90948450

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.